Vegetative morphology for species identification of tropical trees: family distribution

Abstract

Tree specimens from the ESAL herbarium of the Universidade Federal de Lavras, Minas Gerais, Brazil, were described by vegetative characteristics using CARipé, a Microsoft Access database application specially developed for this study. Only one specimen per species was usually described. Thus, 2 observers described 567 herbarium species as a base to test methods of identification as part of a larger study. The present work formed part of that study and provides information on the distribution of 22 vegetative characters among 16 families having 10 or more species described. The characters are discussed. The study found marked differences, even discontinuities, of distributions of characters between those families. Therefore it should be possible to incorporate phylogenetic relationships into the identification process.